1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to hair maintenance and styling devices and in particular to rotating head hairbrushes, combs and picks as stand-alone, combination and attachment type devices.
2. Description of Prior Art
Hairbrushes with stationary brush heads are well known as are rotatable head hair brushes. Such devices have been used alone, provided with heating elements as curling irons or connected to hair dryers. Holley, U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,608 and Jewett, U.S. Pat. No. 4,656,684 respectively.
The bristles of stationary head hairbrushes often grab thick and or tangled hair. Since the brush is a stationary extension of the handle, a conventional brushing motion causes tugging at the hair and eventually causes hair breakage and splitting. So hair care professionals have developed a special wrist movement to provide a combination of brush rotation and movement with variable resistance, referred to in the hair care industry as "waving through the hair". However, this movement is difficult to master and is even more difficult to use on oneself, particularly toward the back of the head and where left or right handedness makes such movement awkard.
Many hairbrush devices, such as Fronius, U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,165, provide a separately moulded, rotatingly affixed brush head that freely rotates as the user applies a conventional brushing motion. Unfortunately, while the brush head rotates rather than tugging at the hair, the brush provides no integral counter rotational resistance. Rather the user must somehow coordinate a conventional brushing motion with one hand and, at the same time, an appropriate brush head rotation damping motion with the other hand. Thus a high degree of training and dexterity, as well as a third hand to position the hair, is required to emulate the brushing motion of hair care professionals.
Other devices such as Dorn, U.S. Pat. No. 4,314,137, add a locking mechanism such that the brush can be used switchably as either a conventional stationary brush or rotating head brush. The disadvantage is that the brush also produces the undesired effects of both stationary and rotating head brushes, be it in an alternative fashion.
Still other rotating head hairbrush devices provide a means for setting the amount of resistance applied to the brush head. A motorized blow dryer as with Schilig, U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,132, improves upon a conventional hair brush attachment by attempting such a feature. One disadvantage is that it fails to allow the user to feel changing pressure in order to adjust accordingly. A second disadvantage is that no provision is made for returning the brush head to a known resting position for consecutive strokes despite the common use of asymetrical brush heads.
A third disadvantage is that the resistance, while manually adjustable, is otherwise constant. Not only is the resistance too severe for the start of a stroke, but it does not vary appropriately throughout the stroke for working through tangles and other continuously variable hair conditions. A third disadvantage is that resistance is unidirectional, forcing often uncomfortable and inefficient positioning of the device for left or right-handed users.
Each of these designs fails to provide continuously variable resistance as a brush, comb or pick is eased through the hair, let alone resistance that varies in concert with rotation of the brush head. Resistance must increase gradually and in concert with rotation of the brush head as the bristles move through the hair in order for the user to detect and cure trouble spots through waving and repeated strokes. In addition, the resistance should vary appropriately with each stroke since hair varies from person to person, from one brushing session to another, from section to section of hair and even from stroke to stroke. For all but the most coordinated and well-trained hair care professionals, such changes must occur automatically as an intrinsic property of the hairbrush device. Additionally, a configurable overall torque curve will further minimize hair damage. The preferable hairbrush device, whether used as a conventional comb or brush, a curling iron, a blow dryer attachment or in other common forms, should also work equally well for right-handed and left-handed users.
Thus there is a need for a rotatable head hairbrush device that emulates the motion of a hair care professional in treating and styling unruly hair while requiring only a simple conventional stroking motion. A device that automatically provides increasing and easily conformable resistance or counter rotational torque in concert with the rotation of the brush head. One that performs similarly for right and left handed persons, returning the brush head to a resting position following each rotation.